Werada Somboonvechakarn's blog

After reading Jenny’s blog about an advertising method called product placement which involves imbedding brands as props within other programming. Jenny had mentioned Coca Cola as an example. They put cups of Coke on the judges table of the American Idol, thus increase the noticing chance of customers who watch this TV show by 99%. This method allows the company to get out their clear message at the right media.

Talking about the advertising strategy, one of them that I experienced in everyday life is direct marketing or direct advertising. I am sure that every single one of you must at least get an e-mail or mail sending from any company promoting their products or promotions. Direct marketing  is an advertising strategy aimed at reaching consumers without the need for some type of intermediary to establish the connection. Now it can be done very easily using the Internet.  I am currently receiving many e-mails from Bath & Body Works, Urban outfitters, Banana Republic, Sephora but never received any e-mail from Mercedes-Benz, football club or anything that related to that. Do you know why? It is because of what we called direct marketing: more personalized, specific to an individual person.

An example of Bath & Body Works direct advertising on my e-mail:

How did Bath & Body Works actually find the right target customers for their products? It is obvious that their products are definitely for women and teenagers with bright pink packaging and sweet smells. It is matter for them to send their e-mails out to those women and not to men. What they did is that they ask for customers’ emails when they are purchasing the products. This is to ensure that their e-mails will be send to their customers to keep them update about their new products or promotions.

The benefit of using e-mails as a direct marketing strategy is that it is very cost-effective, in other words, it doesn’t cost them to send out e-mails- only the costs of designing the posters to be attached in the e-mails. Moreover, it is very easy for them to update the promotions in a very quick way, for example, Bath & Body Works promotes buy 3, get 3 free within the limited time which means that it is happening at the time they sent the e-mails to customers.

However, the company has to keep in mind that not every customer will be happy with the e-mails as it is not just one, but plenty of them. They have to make it easy for customers to unsubscribe, as it might change the attitudes that customers have towards the brand if the e-mails annoyed them.

Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/tszwaing/

I was surfing the Internet and saw this video of an ATM that you can swipe for sprinkles cupcakes instead of cash. (read more: http://wendalicious.com/2012/03/08/cupcakes-at-the-touch-of-a-button-and-a-swipe-of-a-card/) Amazing right? It looks just like a normal ATM for cash but its all painted in bright pink. It is really amazing how the company can manage to sell fresh bakery goods using this kind of channel, ATM, to have 600 pieces of fresh cupcakes stored behind the machine refreshed daily, and ready to be serve through the machine.

I think Sprinkles did a really good job on marketing. It really catches many people’s attentions and received quite a lot of media attention through facebook and twitter. This Cupcake ATM is the world’s first cupcake ATM located in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. Sprinkles has a really cool and trendy brand image, and even with this ATM makes the company seems more trendy to the customers. This ATM not just only target children because of its bright look, but also those who want to buy sweets at night. It is a lot more convenience for customers to buy cupcakes at anytime they want using this machine, thus increase higher sales when the store is not opened, provide convenience which in turn increase customer satisfaction.

The machine itself also attracts many people to come try out this new machine of the world. With the screen that customers can select variety of flavor and color of the cupcakes, and the machine webcam that shows on the screen which let them watch mechanical arm moves itself to get the cupcakes they selected. It is a very new and advanced technology for this type of industry, bakery where all the baked goods have to keep fresh.

In terms of price, I think that the brand itself have an image of a cool, trendy and high-end look towards many people which allow them to price their products a bit higher than normal cupcakes. Each cupcakes cost $3.25 in store and $4.00 if buy from the machine. Even though the price of each cupcake can be considered very expensive, their marketing and branding make the company differs to normal cupcakes shops. With unique brand image and good quality of cupcakes allow the company to sell their cupcakes at higher prices without losing their customers. In addition, now they are planning to open the machine at many locations in the world such as New york. This means that their marketing is really growing not just in LA, but elsewhere in the world.

This is the link to the youtube that shows how the cupcakes are dispensed from the machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jlLQbL2Rv2I#!

(Somehow i can’t link the video on my blog, please check on youtube instead)

As I read through my fellow classmates’ blogs and saw many interesting posts, one of them that caught my attention is about Starbucks is now offering baked goods and breakfast rather than just selling beverages. (See Cecilia’s blog post at https://blogs.ubc.ca/ceciliachun/).  Since we just learned about customer behavior last week, one thing that came into my mind while reading her blog is about how Starbucks has been able to introduce a breakfast line that match the tastes and preferences of their customers in each country. This is because in each culture/country, people have different customer behavior and influences towards the products. Cecilia had discussed about the 4Ps (Produce, Promotion, Placement, and Price) of Starbuck’s decision of the new breakfast line and I agree with her that Starbucks has a terrific marketing strategy, as it is able to brand itself to be one of the valuable, high-end coffeehouse worldwide. Thus, no problem introducing the new breakfast line to the shop.

Some people might think that it is cool just to hold and drink from the cups that have Starbucks’ logos on them, or just to buy baked goods/snacks from Starbucks even if they don’t worth the money spend.  This is because Starbucks have built a ‘cool’ image to represent itself. One thing that Starbucks had gained for its competitive advantage is that they provide convenience to customers. We can find Starbucks nearly everywhere we go across the country from the top of the mountain like whistler to downtown like the twos across each other on Robson Street.

With over 17000 store across over 55 countries, It is amazing how Starbucks can maintains its value and offers baked goods that match the preferences of customers in each country – Social influences. For example, people in Canada and in Thailand would probably have different preferred tastes of baked goods. In my opinion, Thai people like to eat sweeter bakery such as sweet blueberry tart, sweet lemon bar and according to my experience, I noticed that some of the baked goods that offer in Vancouver are not offer in Thailand. Starbucks has been able to market itself to be accepted in each culture, while maintaining the ‘cool’ global image and standards. This is because they know what influence customer behaviors and they know what is right to offer for their customers in each country. Thus, making Starbucks one of the largest high-end coffeehouse.

Have you ever heard about TOMS Shoes? If yes, you probably know that if you buy a pair of TOM Shoes, one will also be given away to a child on your behalf. How can TOM Shoes become so popular and successful when the design of the shoes is so simple. It’s because of the way the company shows concern about the world. And the way it dares to give away so much of what can earn to those who suffer in the society. Even though TOMS Shoes really want to make change for a better world, think in term of marketing we can consider this one of a strong marketing strategy.

We would never expect a company to sell two pairs of shoes for only a single price. It’s like they are on ‘buy one get one free’ promotion all the time. Although customers get only a pair of shoes to themselves, they are proud to be the one who donate another pair of shoes to others. I believe that the way that TOMS Shoes shows a strong concern towards the society as what the mission of TOMS Shoes says “doing good” and “doing well”, they can be really successful in doing business as well as making different in the world. It impressed me that the company had sold more than 1,000,000 pairs of shoes with the profits of more than $8 millions without having to invest in advertising and promotion by September 2010. The shoes are sell everything from outlets to WholeFoods, and even in UBC Bookstore. Its marketing is so strong and powerful that make everyone who bought the shoes are so proud to be part of the change. As you can see from the video that TOMS do care about every single shoes they give away to the children the same way they do to the original customers. They make the customers feel valuable in someway or another to be part to make the difference.

Hi everyone, my name is Werada Somboonvechakarn or Ana. I am a second year student studying in Sauder School of business. One of the most well known questions for second year students are what options we want to choose. However, I am not even sure myself about which option I like to do. I was born in Thailand and spent pretty much my whole life there, for all elementary school, middle school and high school. Then I decided to study abroad to explore my university life. I am interested in marketing as we experience them in daily life.  Although there is no choice for us, second year Sauder students, to choose not to do this course, I am very excited to get to learn about marketing and know more about how it actually work and how it affects us in which way.

As stated, we experience marketing in everyday life, sometimes even without realizing it, we already bought the products home. As a consumer, I am sure that marketing do affects us in either a good way or bad way.  There were times when I want something just because of their attractive ads, without actually thinking whether it will be useful or whether I need it. Many of the stuffs I bought are left behind, yet still get attract to the new products in the market. This is why I think marketing is a very interesting topic! Talking about the attractive ads, one of my favourite is the smartcover for Ipad2. It’s so attractive that I actually bought one for my ipad; the appearance and functions of the cover that show off the ads are stunning. Here is the video of the ads. And a little something about myself is that I have a twin sister and we don’t really look alike 🙂